It's funny how while software changes so fast, and many hardware components evolve at ridiculously fast paces (processors, memory, hard drives), the keyboard has remained largely unchanged over the years - until recently, that is. Even Lenovo has now buckled under the pressure, switching to a chiclet-style keyboard for ThinkPads - while also removing the SysReq key.

However, the staggered rows allow for better distinction of the rows without looking at the keyboard.

Anyway, SysRq isn't the most important key, although PrtSc is more important, and SysRq is underneath PrtSc normally. (I see Lenovo's put PrtSc under Insert, which is acceptable on such a compressed layout.)

What bothers me more is the function keys. On Windows, they're very necessary. Alt-F4? F5? Those two shortcuts alone warrant keeping them as primary function.